Far From Friends
by Cerulean Twin
Summary: Never one to join the party, Vergil muses on life since his return from Hell. ONE-SHOT drabble, slight VxL


_A/N: Yooooo so I recently got back into tumblr rping after a 2-3 year hiatus, and I was checking through some of my old blog posts and I found this drabble I'd written like FOUR YEARS ago. Anyways, I thought it was kinda nice (I'm glad I didn't hate it when I re-read it, lol. I'd tried a little bit different writing style with this just to see what I could do with it, but I liked it) and maybe you guys would enjoy it :) This story mentions both game and anime characters. This will most likely remain as a ONE-SHOT drabble (don't tempt me to write anymore, I have other stories and costumes to be working on xD) so don't hold your breath for any continuation, lol. Anyways, enjoy!_

 _Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or make any profit, blah blah the usual crap_

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Look at them. Look at every one of them, smiling and laughing without a care in the world. Well, he knew that wasn't true. They probably had far more troubles than anyone else, yet they were able to sit there, laughing and joking and drinking as if all was perfect in the universe. How he wished that were true.

Had his brother always looked so… aged? It was faint, but he could see the lines that years of hard fought battles, both physical and emotional, had etched into his face. Maybe no one else saw it because it happened gradually in front of them, but he noticed. That face was the same, yet so very different than the one he had seen before plunging into the depths of hell.

And what about Lady… _Mary_. She had… filled out nicely, to put it simply. The woman almost didn't seem human, for it wasn't natural for a woman to continue to blossom so wonderfully after all this time, but he knew that she was as human as the day he had passed her in that library. Something about her fascinated him, though he kept his distance. The devil originally thought that perhaps it was because she was pretty much the last woman he had seen before descending into the abyss, but the longer he stayed here, the more that theory seemed to crumble. No… maybe it was her defiance in the face of any devil, him especially, or that fire in her eyes- either way, she was a small bit of comfort he found in this place. Even if seeing her so happy as she laughed with his brother and _that woman_ made him want to scream his outrage to the heavens. No… he would just continue to quietly observe her.

Speaking of 'that woman', she was a constant thorn in his side. Every time he laid eyes upon her it was an insult to his mother. Did she not even have the decency to cut or dye her hair? No, of course she didn't. She was a soulless, worthless piece of scum, and he still held quite a bit of resentment toward her for her part in his downfall. That woman… that woman could be dying in the streets and he would only spit on her corpse. Of course, he tolerated her presence for their sakes, but it was an unspoken rule that he never be forced to speak to her or interact with her, and everyone knew better than to leave them any place alone. He hated her, to put it simply. That would probably never completely disappear, but the devil did have to admit that he was… handling her presence far better than when he had first returned.

Sometimes that little girl came by, too, but thankfully for his sanity she was not here tonight. Well, little girl might be pushing it, she was a teenager by now, though from what he'd been told she'd been coming by for several years now. The devil had to admit, it was rather amusing when she would scold Dante, and actually put him in his place. Who knew that he was such a push over when it came to such things? He laughed aloud every time he saw his poor brother being forced to buy her sundaes, and those were some of the only occasions his laughter was actually genuine. The girl, Patty, wasn't entirely bad, though Dante kept insisting she'd gotten better as she'd grown, and had been quite the hellion in the past. At least he hadn't had to witness that.

The biggest surprise had to be that boy, Nero. The presence within him had been felt immediately, and it had taken both Dante and _that woman_ 's efforts to keep him from rending the brat limb from limb. His sword… his precious Yamato, in the hands of some child he had never even met. How his brother could trust someone he didn't even know at the time with his most precious possession had been the topic of many arguments and all out brawls in the shop. But as the weeks passed and he began to acclimate to 'human' life again, the devil couldn't help but to notice how the boy actually seemed quite… bonded with the blade. Nero seemed to care a great deal about it, and after having finally settled down to listen to exactly how he'd acquired it, the devil had to admit that perhaps it wasn't the end of the world for him to have it. He still wanted his sword back… but he was less inclined to murder the brat just to get it.

His attention flickered back to Dante, eyes roaming over the other devil and taking in every little detail of his appearance. They still looked the same, but the differences were there. Dante was hard muscle and determined eyes, and he… he was leaner, faster, but there was a sort of defeated look in his own eyes that spoke of untold horrors. Vergil had never wanted to tell Dante exactly what went on in Hell, knowing his brother would only blame himself for it. The elder twin couldn't do that to him… so many years in that place had completely changed his perspective on life. Sure, he still wanted to impale his brother sometimes, or throw him off of a cliff, but now… now he respected him, understood him even, the latter if only a little. No, he didn't hate him anymore, nor Lady, Patty, or Nero, and maybe not even Trish when he really thought about it… but they were far from friends.

The devil sighed as he stared down at the untouched drink in his hands, their laughter and raucous chattering becoming nothing but static noise mingling with the music in the background as he lost himself to his thoughts. He was so deep in his inner musings that he didn't notice Dante's approach until the other's hand clamped down hard on his shoulder, jolting him from his thoughts.

"Come on, bro, and join the party. You're going to turn into a statue if you sit there any longer…" the younger twin teased.

Vergil rolled his eyes, but stood and followed him over to the pair of women hunters nonetheless. He tried to sit on the end, but Dante pointedly slid into that seat before he could, leaving the only empty seat the couch cushion right next to Lady. The elder twin shot his brother a glare that screamed 'traitor', but Dante just gave him a coy grin as he was forced to take the seat.

Vergil was about to give his brother a piece of his mind for his trickery when Lady turned to him, a light flush on her cheeks that said she had been drinking, but was far from inebriated, and placed her hand on his thigh.

"Come dance with me, or I'll be stuck dancing with him," the woman said, jerking her thumb in Dante's direction which drew an annoyed whine from the devil in red.

Cool blue eyes widened fractionally before he nodded slowly, sitting his drink on the table as she took his hand and pulled him from the couch. As he was practically dragged by, Vergil didn't miss the smug and knowing smile on his twin's face, and he returned it with a small but visible smirk of his own as Lady pulled him to an empty space on the floor and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Maybe they weren't so far from friends after all.


End file.
